Chapter Thirteen
Corvus
Clearly the festival of summer’s beginning retained some of its magic from days past.
It had worked all kinds of magic last night.
Joshua was mine.
The thing was, he didn’t know all of me and telling him, showing him, had me more scared than I had been in my whole life.
I woke up and saw him lying next to me. Reaching up to rub my hand over my face, I realized, I wore the Crow King mask. It was a permanent part of me and sometime in the night, my glimmer must’ve faded.
Joshua’s eyes were wide and my whole world came crashing down.
“You’re him.”
I backed up in case he was afraid. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was frighten my mate. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
“What for?” Putting his hand on my waist, he coaxed me back to the spot I was in before. Right next to him. Our skin touching.
“For not telling you.”
My mate raised up on his elbow to get a better look.
He smoothed his hand over my armor and outlined my face with the tip of his finger.
“You’re the Crow King, aren’t you? The one from long ago.
Who was given trinkets and treasures and blessed the fields and the harvest. I used to hear the stories.
My grandmother used to tell me them. I always saw you as the hero. ”
I huffed out a breath through my nose. “I’m no hero, omega. I loved the praise. Lived for the gifts and absorbed every bit of the applause. But that was a long time ago. I’m him, the Crow King, yes, but I’m not the same person I once was.”
His eyebrows bunched. “They no longer give you gifts?”
“No. They don’t believe in me anymore. The new people. The new generations. They have chemicals and man-made fertilizers to make their crops and trees grow. They don’t need me anymore.”
He continued to inspect my armor, and I wondered why he wasn’t screaming or running for the damned hills. Most humans would, especially if they woke up to this sight. “Aren’t you scared?”
“No, Corvus. I’m not scared of you.”
“The armor. My royal armor, you’re…you’re not repulsed.”
Shaking his head, he sat all the way up, his back against the headboard, but he turned to face me. “I’m not repulsed by any part of you. I don’t think I ever could be.”
Love and adoration flooded my veins, filling me with a new fire for life, for him. “It takes a lot of my energy to make this go away but if you really don’t mind…”
“I don’t mind, Corvus. But I am sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I scoffed. How could this perfect, forgiving omega ever be sorry for anything. He’d singlehandedly brought me back to life, back from the shadows of loneliness and listlessness.
“For not being the omega you could trust with your truth.”
He slayed me with his words. What an incredible man he was. “How could you ever blame yourself? I wanted to tell you. Wanted to show you all the parts of me but I was scared.”
“Of me?” he asked.
“No, of your rejection. Of finding out that the only man I’ve ever loved couldn’t look at me, or worse, looked at me with disgust.”
“I could never, alpha.” Joshua leaned in and kissed my eyes and then my beak. His hands kneaded my shoulders and made their way down my waist. “I think…I think I’m in love with you, mate. Isn’t that what shifters call each other? Mates?”
I nodded and grabbed his hips, grinding his hardness against my own.
“Yes, Joshua. You are my mate. My omega. My one and only. And I don’t think I’m in love with you. I am. Every cell. Every feather. Every bone both hollow and full. I love you, all the parts of me love you.”
I switched on the glimmer, needing his lips on mine, to feel his tongue plunging into my mouth once again. His hands delved into my hair and he pulled it at the back, urging me on.
“Hey, wait, you can turn into a real crow, can’t you?”
“I can.”
“I want to see that sometime, please.”
We began kissing again and he sharply pulled back once more. “The trinkets. At my house. Every day a new one on my porch. In the exact same spot. Those were from you.”
I moved and laid him on his back with me hovering above him. “Get used to it, omega mine. You’ll be getting a lot of trinkets from now on. All my treasures and gifts and blessings. They all belong to you.”
He bucked his hips and I lost my mind. The scent of peaches and whipped honey surged through my senses. It was all him. “And what shall I give you back, alpha?”
I rumbled deep in my chest. Didn’t even know my crow could make that sound until that moment. “Give me your love every day, omega. Trade me your heart and your affection and I’ll be your Crow King forever and ever.”
He reached for my face, pulling me down on top of him. “That sounds like a good deal.”
After mating three more times, we stopped at the bakery for breakfast, and Joshua said he had to have coffee. It was entirely too sweet for me, but it made him moan in a way I strived for. We decided to go to his farmhouse and get working.
“How am I ever gonna finish this?” he asked.
“With my help. We can do it together. We’re in this together now.”